Responding to widespread outrage over a video depicting a hooked shark thrashing into a long-distance swimmer off the Manhattan Beach Pier, the fisherman who snagged the 7-foot great white defended himself Monday, calling the incident “a tragic accident.”

“If I could take it back, I wouldn’t have gone fishing that day,” said Jason Hagemann, a Lawndale resident who has fished off the pier for decades. “I grew up swimming and fishing all my life and never had any problems there.”

Manhattan Beach city officials, meanwhile, decided Monday to close the pier to fishing for the next 60 days in the aftermath of the dramatic Saturday incident, during which swimmer Steven Robles was bit on the rib cage by the juvenile shark as it tried to free itself from Hagemann’s fishing line.

Hagemann became the target of derision on social media after a video of the ordeal was posted online that caught several pier fishermen laughing and joking as the group of long-distance swimmers approached the thrashing shark.

“People think we were having fun with it but that’s not what was going on,” said Hagemann, who has received several personal threats from people who viewed the video and chastised him for putting the swimmers at risk. “We didn’t believe the shark was that close to them. At first, no one thought he got bit. We thought he just got scared. As soon as we realized he got bit, the mood changed.”

Robles’ screams can be heard on the video after the shark attack. Nearby swimmers helped him to shore aboard a paddle board and he is recovering from the gash after treatment in a hospital emergency room. In an interview over the weekend with the Los Angeles News Group, the former lifeguard said he is unsure whether he wants to continue his ocean swimming regimen.

When the fishers and other bystanders on the pier realized that Robles was screaming because he had been bitten and not just because he was scared, they started yelling for swimmers to get out of the water.

“I can’t sleep thinking that he has to live the rest of his life scared to death about what happened to him,” Hagemann said. “We didn’t wish this on anybody, it’s a tragic accident.”

Capt. Rebecca Hartman of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said Hagemann isn’t suspected of violating protections on white sharks — even though fishers are required to release the animals immediately and he held it on the line for 40 minutes.

“We have no reason to believe that the fisherman was targeting white sharks,” Hartman said. “The fisherman said that, when they identified it as a white shark, it was in among people and they didn’t want to release it right there around the people. I can see their logic in not wanting to cut the line when it’s going toward swimmers.”

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On Monday, representatives from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Manhattan Beach officials requesting that fishing be banned forever from the pier to “protect public safety and reduce the risk that another swimmer will be injured or killed by a panicked or confused shark.”

Manhattan Beach City Manager Mark Danaj said city officials will study the issue for the next two months while the temporary fishing prohibition is in effect.

“Preservation of the coast and safe access to it have been the city’s key priorities for a long time,” Danaj said. “The city is going to consult with the state Coastal Commission and other regulatory agencies to evaluate impacts to public safety from allowing fishing from the pier.”

The Pacific Fishery Management Council, which regulates West Coast waters up to 3 miles offshore, has prohibited the taking of white sharks since 1994. Two years ago, the sharks were considered for federal protection as well but, in June, the council decided that their numbers are growing enough that they aren’t endangered.

Their increasing population is likely due to reduced fishing, said Chris Lowe, a professor and white shark researcher at Cal State Long Beach who estimates that there are about 2,400 off California.

“Saturday’s incident was a result of everybody being in the same place at the same time,” Lowe said. “It was a holiday weekend, the busiest beach weekend of the year, beautiful weather, fishers on the pier and little white sharks roaming around. Even if the swimmer didn’t get hurt by the shark, the fishing line could have really hurt someone — it could have cut through skin easily.”

The area from the Manhattan Beach Pier to El Porto has been a rookery for white sharks for about a decade and the animals have been especially noticeable this year as their populations increase. Lowe said they prefer the Manhattan Beach area because the water is warm and there are plenty of sting rays, halibut and other ground-feeding fish to eat. White sharks do not become mammal eaters until they are full-grown adults. As juveniles, they are abandoned by their mothers immediately after birth so they forage near their birthing grounds for fish.

Adults usually grow to be 13-14 feet long but they can reach lengths of 21 feet. Their size as adults and position in the ocean as an apex predator gave them the nickname “great” white sharks. The juvenile hooked Saturday was estimated to be about 7 feet long.